This funny cartoon that shows Bill Clinton, a democrat, giving money to the federal bureaucracy and the conservative party mascot, the elephant, doing the same to the parents, comically highlights the disagreement in how different perspectives approach education and reform. I have always enjoyed learning about politics and philosophy (it being my first major in college), but it wasn't until recently that I moved from liking politics to actually feeling the impact of certain legislation's on my profession. Be it, spending the entire month of February, frantically preparing my students for ISAT testing, or dealing with the politics of Unions and CPS, taking a stance and advocating for the reforms that will benefit my students is another part of my job.
I consider myself what Payne calls a progressive educator or a "position is that you get change by changing people, by developing them ... people must have ownership over change and that means that change must be largely a bottoms-up process, a voluntary process." (193) This means that I favor the policies that focus on in-school reform and stem from inclusion of multitude of voices in the making of decisions. I see it as a truly democratic way, but it can also be a very messy process. Sometimes we find it difficult to find a consensus between a group of people, so imagine trying to incorporate hundreds, or thousands of voices? This process can become unbearable. It also assumes that people genuinely want change and are willing to actively volunteer for making it happen. While the system of progressive education is not perfect, I do believe in its mission to battle the hegemonic structures inherent in our country and build a more collective approach to decision making. I will take an active stance in promoting the progressive model of education in my classroom, by incorporating a range of voices and cultural perspectives into my curriculum, being culturally responsive and what Gary R. Howard calls "opening up the circle of power to those who have historically been marginalized by it." (80) That means having an open forum to talk about serious issues like race and power in a safe environment. These are some ways that I can integrate my advocacy in my classroom.
In terms of advocating for my profession, I would like to draw a lot from Linda Darling-Hammond and her book The Flat World and Education in which she examines the systematic requirements of an education system that allows all teachers and students to learn. Some of the components of functioning schools, as seen in other educational systems from around the world, include:
These are some of the tenets of public school systems that I agree, and I will endorse political candidates that share these beliefs with me. I would like to expand on the first point of the slide, and talk about the importance of fair, and efficient funding for school reform success. First, I would like to come out and say that I do not endorse an equitable funding policy that allocates equal amount of resources to every school. This system does not take into consideration that every school will have different financial needs because of different social, economic and societal factors. With that said, I support fair funding, where funds are dispersed based on estimated need of each particular school. Providing fair funds to low-income schools can mean a higher financial incentive for hiring more qualified teachers in areas where they are most needed. This is where I think Federal Government should come in. I would support any candidate that would expand federal funding of school and stray away from basing school funds on local property taxes because as Hammond puts it "to invalidate the state education finance system because its reliance on local property taxes generated greatly unequal spending" (135) with richer districts providing more money than their poorer contemporaries. With fair federal funding, it is possible to close off the inequitable distribution of wealth based on privilege and local.
Conversely, I will not endorse any candidate or group of thought that tries to privatize the public education system. I am not a great supporter of charter schools, and while I see some merit in suspending bureaucratic red tape to study innovation, I do not condone the violation of public education policy by kicking out students who are deemed hard to control, unfair treatment of teachers and merit based pay, which pins teachers agains teachers in a highly competitive model of work. I do not uphold these values, and can never see myself supporting the privatization approach to public education.
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